St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1887-09-12
FOR REAL ESTATE MEN.
DIR. Sam Smith Sizes Up the Trans
actions of Agents and Dealers.

Rev. S. G. Smith last night preached
a sermon in the First Methodist church
on the Trials and Triumphs of Real
Estate Agents. in which he sized up
the good and bad points OF the business
in his usual style, without
that occupied all the pew room, and
accommodate those who came in late.
The reverend gentleman, in opening,
went somewhat into the political
economy of real estate transac-
tions, and discussed briefly the
land theories of Henry George.
He held that the individual
ownership of land, and all the land one
could honestly and hOnorably get the
title to, was right and proper and would
III the long run be found to be the best
for the general welfare of society,"
To have the foresight, he said,
to buy land wisely, entitled
man to all he could honestly get out of
that land. Those who were not in on
the ground floor must come later and
give the early purchaser the benefit of
his venture. The speaker then said
that real estate men were on trial, as a
class, as to their economic right
to exist. This question involved
the question of the middle men," who
bought and sold on commission and
whose business was to bring together
the buyer and seller in real estate deals.
He held that there was call for this
class of business and that the middle
men were fulfilling an important
mission.
A MORAL TRIAL.
Real estate dealers are on trial in the
moral world, the speaker said, and then
''There is a real estate deal recorded in
the scripture" he said, sin which the
parties who made the sale did not
report the exact consideration. Their
names were Ananaias and Saphira,
and they were at once pun
ished for their crookedneSs. Ii
this sort of punishment were dealt out
in st. Paul, some of you would say,
am afraid, that there are not enough
ministers in the city to attend to the
funerals"
The speaker then dwelt on the i'm
portant part that conscience ought to
play in real estate transactions, and
said it was possible for man,
by enthroning conscience as king,
to overcome the natural and
acquired greed of gold, and do a square
and honest real estate business. This
greed for money he characterized as the
strongest of mans passions. Licentious-
ness lasted only during youth; the love
of pleasure only in the time of strengt h
the love of power only until one tired
of it; but greed grows stronger as
man grows older and weaker.
1t increases year by year
until it palsies the nerves, ehills the
blood, makes strangers in the home and
Crucities the wife and child and then he
who suffers it to rule him falls on the
altar he has reared and is himself sacri-
feed as the last victim. DIR. Smith
then illustrated a certain class of trans
actions by the story of the temptation
of Christ by the devil, who, he said
was the type of every man who goes
wrong on his contract business. The
devil promised to give the whole world
10 Christ If He would fall down and
worship him, when he had not even AN
option ON this earth. There were too
many Of these Questionable deals on
Robert, Jackson and other streets down
town, he said. He discouraged "boom-
ing" real estate. He declared it a
PLAIN CASE OF ROBBERY,
covered by the commandment which
prohibits stealing, whenever real es-